the people voting no are idiots.
but the car with some of the mods you want for pennies on the dollar and save a ton.

I agree with Philip.

Great buys come around now and then on already modified cars. Of course I don't know how often this happens on the African Continent! I have been doing a budget build on a 94. 80% of my purchases have been used or 2nd hand. Buy the time you upgrade wheels, tires, suspension, chassis, roll bar, brakes, cosmetics, I've got a couple thousand US dollars of parts into it easily without touching the drivetrain. Now start adding in performance parts for the engine, turbo kit, clutch, again easily another $2000 or more. None of this includes any labor and all the parts were bought at good prices. It's pretty easy to spend $6000 in upgrades if you are paying for parts and labor.

In the US we often see modded cars for the same or less than stock cars. For well built, well cared for modded cars I would expect to pay maybe 25% of the cost of the mods. That savings makes an already finished car very appealing. Just be sure to have the car thoroughly checked out before buying!

yes for the same or less it is a hell of a deal but you guys need to read the modded car is double the price of the newer unmodded car. FWIW 3bar what is the price of each vehicle to put abit of perspective on this?

i would buy the modded one. saves the trouble of moding it yourself

OK now before you all laugh - the market for cars in South Africa is a little bit different and our prices are the highest in the world !!!!

ok the modded one is at a retail price of ZAR 150 000.00 (thats about 20 000 USD) the std one is ZAR 85 000.00 (thats about 11 300 USD) and no I cant buy one in the USA or Japan and bring it here - our customs laws forbid this - there are rules that no second hand vehicle may be brought into the country.

To put that in perspective a brand new MX 5 goes for ZAR 288 000 (about 38 000 USD)

so if I buy the std one - I figure I can negotiate it down ZAR 10 000 (about 1300 USD) then I get it for ZAR 75 000 - to add a turbo and etcs to it will cost:

Prices in ZAR and USD (I am showing what I would pay for them in my hands - item + frieght + duty + shipping + VAT - in some cases including insurance - if the item is more than 500 usd I take insurance on it and then adding in local materials - like silicone couplers / install time - if I cant do it myself etc)

Turbo GT28RS 13 000.00 (USD 1700)
ECU 10 000.00 (USD 1 300) (we have poor fuel here so 02 clamp and timing retard wont cut it - experience tells me this - this price includes fitment and tuning)
Manifold 5 000.00 (USD 600) (and downpipe)
pipes and fittings 1 200.00 (USD 160)
injectors and afpr 6 000.00 (USD 800)
boost gauge 2 200.00
afr 2 500.00
FMIC 6 000.00 (USD 800)

so with half the mods we pretty much at the same price as the modded car

the modded car has way more mods in monetary terms and looks done properly - I am not worried about shortcuts on it - but its a heck of a price !

I have loads of parts from STI's and Evos but they not really relevant here ! and I will sell them off to fund the Miata

edit: so far I have only been able to track down 3 modded miatas in the country - this one - another with a supercharger and similiar other mods - friends of the current owner of the one I got my eye on and then another with a FE engine swap and HUGE HKS turbo dedicated drag car - so they not exactly common.

you could use a evo fmic 800 for injectors and a fpris unlikely as well i am sure you could find these parts second hand. boost gauge for 200$ WTF where my analog guage was 35$ even if they charged 100$ for dutys and shipping i doubt you will reach 200$ the rest seems to be about right though just thought i would point that out. Given your thinking and obvius opinion of the modded car i would go for it. GL man

I wish we had the breakers and parts availability of the USA ! ! !

to give you an idea - there are 35 Evo 8 in the country and 30 evo 9 - Mitsubishi threatened to bring 50 in of each but never sold that many - all were brought in as special order with an appropriate waiting period - so forget about finding one in a breakers yard !

as to boost gauge - yes I can go and get a cheap cheap cheap boost gauge for ZAR 600 about 80 USD but the chances of it being accurate are poor - think worse than the worst ebay quality ! - on a guage my feeling is dont go cheap !
I can cut corners where possible but not on a gauge !

damn i had no idea there was such a drought, in africa. No mazda parts from r7's etc that sucks on the evos. Car aparthied FTL :( but hey you guys get the superformance Brock coupe though :D

the rx 7 was not officially sold here - since the first gen version and then that about 25 years ago - i dont have a clue what "the brock coupe" is !!!

but yip modded cars are not common ! BMW is very big here though !
and our local track has just been sold to make way for an office park ! so if anyone has FUNDS to build a proper race track here ! it will make big cash ! the demand here in SA is huge ! despite the prices ! I have also been trying to open a "Super Auto Bacs" here but no luck !

http://www.superformance.com/home.aspx check it out i think there factory is in south africa.

Nog n turbo mx in die proses hier ou maat.....Ek het die volgende shape in n 1.6 en plak self nou n t28 op.....sal lekker wees om kontak te maak met jou....eks in pta,naby die kolenade sentum!

For all the rest of the people,that was a greeting in our home language!Prabably looks like gibberish!

Exclamation marks are something South Africa has an abundance of.

oops i realized this thread is old

Both of mine have started out bone stock and I wouldn't do it any other way. All the cars I've ever bought pre-modded have been nightmares of hodge-podge parts and shitty worksmanship. I end up spending just as much time and money fixing what the previous owner messed up as I would have just modding the car exactly how I wanted it in the first place.

I'd find a modded one that meets my criteria. I have around $20k into my car, including the purchase price of $12k, and I'm not done yet. I've seen similarly modded nbs for $8k to $10k.

Holy old thread batman!

I bought mine modded because it gave me a good starting point, and kept me from committing suicide due to slowness of an NA miata

"oldschool" is an idiot.

wow... 3 year old bump.

Buy modded. Save tons of cash :)

Properly modded

So don't buy a car full of fail?